


The Emerald Trail

by piggybackride (mssileas)



Series: Hayseed and Farmer [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Asexuality Spectrum, Disability, Farmer!AU, Hayseed Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes, Hurt/Comfort, Junkenstein, M/M, Origin Story, Past Abuse, Witchcraft, witch!mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 04:37:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssileas/pseuds/piggybackride
Summary: Mako realized he couldn’t remember when he had stopped questioning Hayseed’s existence, his origins, his justification for walking this earth. At what point had it become normal to him to have a living, moving, talking scarecrow around at almost all times? When had he stopped wondering what horrid things could lie underneath that burlap, and where they had come from?





	The Emerald Trail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwistedVirtues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedVirtues/gifts).



> Hello friends!
> 
> I promised you a quick update on the last piece, and here it is!  
> Finally we get a Hayseed origin story, so for all of you who wanted the angst, I hope you're happy now. :)
> 
> Gifted to Terra, who brainstormed this idea with me and who's also been a great emotional and creative support during the last weeks. Big thanks also to [Shanks](http://armatages.tumblr.com/post/179067373253/armatages-icons-10-one-character-headshot) for pushing me and having my back and [Skadi](https://wodenskadi.tumblr.com/) for the speedy edits <3 I am very blessed to have such a big support system. 
> 
> This is part of the series, and while it's probably not necessary to read the previous parts to follow this story, I highly recommend it to get the most out of it. :)
> 
> Enjoy!

Winter arrived with cold winds that bit through clothes and skin alike. Frost glazed the naked trees of the orchards and the plains of the fields, and a pale sun occasionally glanced past thick, grey clouds. 

For the farmer, it usually meant a peaceful break, especially after the harvest months. Now the fields would rest, the animals would huddle together in the stables for warmth, and he’d catch up on some much needed sleep before using nature’s resting phase to do some much needed renovations on the house. Hayseed could help him, he thought. If it decided to focus for a minute, the scarecrow could be a useful little helper, or at least good company during these tedious tasks. Mako had become accustomed to carry out most of his daily work to a steady stream of curious chatter. At night though, when they’d warm up in front of the fireplace, Hayseed would be quiet for a change, so he could listen to Mako read to him. 

Mako read very slowly, even when he did it quietly and to himself. He was aware of that, hard not to be when teachers had called you lazy or dumb because of it all throughout school. Now as an adult though, he enjoyed reading again, because by himself he had all the time in the world. No one cared about his slow speed that way, or if it took him a week to go through one chapter because he fell asleep three times in a row trying to read the same paragraph. But he had outright declined reading out loud to Hayseed for months. Mako knew he’d just embarrass himself, he knew people got impatient with him, which in turn made him anxious and shut down. 

Hayseed himself couldn’t read, though. So he had taken to flip through Mako’s books, searching for even to most minor illustrations, and then bombarding the farmer with questions. Who were these people? Were they the main characters? Were they a couple? What were they doing? Were all ladies in the book wearing such pretty flowing dresses? The scarecrow would go on like this forever, but no matter how in detail Mako had answered, he always had more of them. Until one day the farmer had sighed very heavily, opened the book on page one, and had told Hayseed to be quiet and listen if he wanted to hear the entire story. 

To his surprise, Hayseed had stayed quiet. Well, mostly quiet. The scarecrow hadn’t mentioned once how slow and dragged out Mako’s reading was, or how with some words he needed to mouth them silently at first before he would say them out loud, as if trying on his tongue whether he had gotten them right. But Hayseed would make curious _’ohhh’_ and _’mhmm’_ sounds, nodding along or shaking his head as the story progressed. 

The only parts he hadn’t liked were the passages that described the couple’s love life in absurdly euphemistic detail. The farmer had been so focused on getting the words out right, he had barely realized _what_ he was reading, until Hayseed had interrupted him. “Mako,” he had said unusually softly. “I don’t think I care for… for bosoms and… stuff…”  
Mako frowned at the passage for a second, skimming over the next page that just continued in the same manner before the story finally picked up again. He had actually never understood the point of those explicit scenes - if any adult reading this had not figured out how sex worked by now, those highly romanticized descriptions wouldn’t help them. And the idea that someone found that genuinely arousing was an even weirder notion to him.

“I actually don’t care for it either,” he had said very thoughtfully, wondering whether he had ever said that out loud before, and had flipped the page. That was that, and Mako had simply skipped the quaking thighs and sighing breaths from then on. 

The more they practiced, the more confident Mako got. He didn’t really get much faster, but he found it easier to relax and take the time he needed because Hayseed never seemed bored or annoyed by it. It became an enjoyable routine for both of them, one he was sure they’d get to carry out more once a heavy blanket of snow safely tucked in the land and didn’t leave them much choice but to stay warm and indoors anyway. Maybe he’d even try and teach Hayseed how to read - how long could that take with Mako as his teacher, a decade? 

Not that it mattered, because right now, he couldn’t even find Hayseed. The scarecrow had been gone since morning, just disappeared seemingly without a trail. He wasn’t in Mako’s house, he wasn’t on his post in the fields, he wasn’t with the animals or in the sheds. There was no answer when the farmer called for him, either, and Mako started to feel quite uneasy about that. He was about to get the dog to sniff out the scarecrow - when he noticed something already did give its location away after all. 

Throughout the day, Mako barely ever saw the cats that lived on the farm. They weren’t so much pets as classic pest control, he didn’t feed them, he didn’t shelter them, they simply co-existed with the farmer. The closest they got to him was for a bit of communal lazing in a summer afternoon sun after the day’s work had been done. Apart from that, they kept to themselves. 

But they had taken a liking to Hayseed that Mako found a bit unsettling. He could never shake the feeling that they had something in common with the scarecrow that his human mind just would not comprehend, even though he scoffed at himself for that notion. Still, everytime one of the half-feral beasts curled up against the scarecrow like a spoiled kitten, they’d shoot Mako a look that said _’Mind your own business, you are not part of this club’_ , until he started to believe it. 

As it turned out, there seemed to be something to this theory. Even though Mako could still not put his finger on it, today it did come in quite handy. 

Four cats were piled up in the hayloft, looking as cozy and relaxed as could be, something Mako had never see them do before as a group. He stopped his search for a moment, frowning up at the cat pile, and then frowning even deeper when he heard a muffled _’shush!’_ from somewhere deep under the hay. A skinny, black cat just started purring in response. _‘Go away!’_ , the voice hissed, a bit more urgent, but still trying to be as quiet as possible. 

Mako crossed his arms in front of his chest and cocked his head, watching as a pale hand reached through the hay to shove at a cat. It didn’t move an inch, if anything it leaned into the touch as if it was a caress, and Hayseed whimpered in distress. The farmer had no idea why Hayseed was attempting to hide from him, but he was surprised by neither the scarecrow’s random antics anymore, nor the fact that Hayseed did a particularly bad job at disappearing on purpose. 

“I already know you’re up there,” Mako sighed. “Why are you hiding?”

“Shhhhh!” Hayseed hissed at him as well now, trying to dig himself deeper underneath the piles of hay from the rustling sounds of it. Dust rose up in the air, making one of the cats sneeze - and yet they still didn’t leave. “Go away, all of you!” The rusty voice was shaky, and full of fear Mako realized now, but he didn’t understand - 

“She’ll find me,” Hayseed wailed. “She’s coming and she’ll find me and she’ll make me go _back_ and I… I… -” His voice broke into a sob that sounded absolutely devastated. Mako didn’t even know how to begin approaching the situation. 

“Hayseed, who are you talking about?” He attempted to climb up the sturdy ladder, but the scarecrow’s frantic protests made him stop dead in his tracks again. Mako sighed. What was he supposed to do to console his companion, when Hayseed wouldn’t even let him come close. 

“Go away,” the scarecrow repeated again. “She’s coming, Mako, haven’t you seen it? You can’t let her find me, I can’t go back, please I don’t want to go back…” Hayseed dissolved into more quiet, heartbroken sobbing that made Mako’s stomach clench. 

None of his attempts to calm the scarecrow down worked though. Hayseed stubbornly hid from the farmer, insisting he stay away, to leave him alone and pretend he wasn’t here, then maybe the witch would not find him. The witch. Mako shook his head in exhausted disbelief. Hayseed, who still had a good chance to only be a very vivid hallucination caused by a severe psychosis due to prolonged isolation, was afraid of a witch coming to get him. Of all things he could be afraid of. A witch. 

Finally, Mako ran out of ideas. He left Hayseed alone in his hideout to step outside, taking deep breaths of chill air to sort himself out. His brain felt like it was racing and yet completely devoid of any sort of understanding at the same time. What was he supposed to say to someone who was convinced that a witch was going to come and take him. Take him where, exactly?!

Mako realized he couldn’t remember when he had stopped questioning Hayseed’s existence, his origins, his justification for walking this earth. At what point had it become normal to him to have a living, moving, talking scarecrow around at almost all times? When had he stopped wondering what horrid things could lie underneath that burlap, and where they had come from?  
Maybe those weren’t the important questions though. Maybe there was only one question he should really be bothered with: how insane had he gone?

Hayseed felt real, Mako could hear him and touch him and _smell_ him, for crying out loud. Even the animals reacted to him, so Mako couldn’t have just made him up. To him, the scarecrow was as real as every other living creature on this farm. Though Hayseed contradicted all laws of nature, by which all that lived also needed to sleep and eat, aged or got sick. None of these things applied to the scarecrow however, and Mako had simply gotten used to that. He couldn't tell when he had stopped questioning how that was possible, and that realization scared him for a moment.  
Then he remembered the little girl at the market fair - she had seen Hayseed move. Mako remembered the shock and surprise he had seen in her face through the rear view mirror. It wasn’t just him who saw it. 

Slowly, his heart stopped pounding in his chest. Only to have it skip a beat entirely when the next realization hit him. If Hayseed was indeed not just a figment of his imagination, that meant there could just as well be a witch. Mako huffed in disbelief. Witches were relics from fairy tales, how was he supposed to believe that some old hag dressed in rags and animal bones was set on crawling out of her forest cave dwelling to go after Hayseed, of all creatures. Yet, he couldn’t entirely dismiss the idea either - the last time he had seen the scarecrow this frightened had been the day when he had first found it. 

Mako had never found out where the curious creature had come from. Hayseed never talked about where he had been before he had appeared on the farm, and he certainly had never mentioned a witch before. Now she seemed his worst nightmare, sending him into straight terror, and Mako had no idea how to help him. 

_’She’s coming, Mako, haven’t you seen it?’_ Hayseeds words echoed through his mind. Seen what?

Mako let his gaze wander across the, but at first sight, everything appeared completely normal. This was ridiculous, he didn’t even know what he was looking for - 

A ray of pale sunshine fell through between grey clouds, and suddenly a sparkle on the ground caught his eye. Right over by the well, something was glittering between the dark, damp pebbles, and Mako frowned. He went to inspect it - and found a brightly shining emerald right there on the ground. There were more, scattered all around the well, but as he picked them up to see them up closer, he found they turned to ordinary pebbles in his hand. On the ground, the emeralds never seemed to have left their place. 

Mako pressed his eyes shut for five whole seconds, counting them down in his head - when he opened them again, his hands were still full of pebbles, and little jewels were glimmering on the ground, circling the well. Mako clenched his teeth, then suddenly turned around and headed back to the main house with legs that felt heavier than usual. He desperately needed a drink. 

He wasn’t a general fan of alcohol, especially not this early in the day, but he figured if there had ever occurred a situation in which a man just needed a good stiff drink in his hand, it was exactly now. It didn’t even taste nice, burning all the way from the moment it touched his lips until it settled in his stomach - but then it did actually make him relax for a split second. Clearly, this day had started out with too much odd excitement. He’d go back out, see that there was nothing uncommon going on at all, pick up the crazy scarecrow from his hideout and return to normal. Whatever the definition of his own normal was. 

Not only were the emeralds still there when he stepped out on his porch again - but instead of just circling the well now, they also started to form a trail. It didn’t lead very far yet, maybe a half meter away from the well, but it was definitely aimed at the stables where Hayseed was still in hiding. In vain, as it seemed. Mako gritted his teeth. 

-

He spent the better part of the day fighting a battle he didn’t even understand which rules it was held by. No matter what he tried, nothing erased the jeweled trail that grew longer every goddamn time he wasn’t looking. The inside of the well looked perfectly ordinary though, but in a last desperate attempt to do _something_ , he ended up covering it with a heavy concrete plate nevertheless. He shifted it in place, made sure the opening was sufficiently closed off from all sites, and stepped back, satisfied with the result. If only for a second.

With a deafening crack, the concrete cover broke right in half, as clean as a porcelain plate, and Mako felt his guts freeze to ice. 

Finally he gave up trying to fight something he could neither see nor understand on his own. Back in the stables, Hayseed hadn’t left his spot, but Mako was pretty sure there were even more cats piling up around the lump in the hay now. The wailing and sobbing had died down to choking silence, and Mako sighed in defeat. 

“You were right. Something is happening out there, and I don’t know how to stop it -”

“You can’t,” Hayseed’s squeaky, hoarse voice interrupted him. “No one can.” He was crying again, quietly and to himself this time but Mako could still hear it. Inside of him, the numb feeling of utter helplessness turned into rage. Who was this witch to think she could just show up on his property and force Hayseed to go back from whatever terror he had escaped? This was still _his_ land and _his_ farm and _his_ scarecrow, too, so he’d be damned if he just stood aside to let her do as she pleased. 

In the end he resorted to the last line of defense he could think of - and so, fully equipped, he camped out in front of the stables to wait for the inevitable. 

\---

As soon as the setting sun in the west touched the horizon, the wind noticeably picked up in strength. The crank lever on the well set into motion, the knot that kept the bucket tied to the rope coil snapped, and sent it tumbling down the hole. A cold chill ran down Mako’s back when the lever stopped spinning for a moment - and then turned the other way as if moved by an invisible hand. 

What it pulled up was not the raggedy old woman Mako had expected. Sitting on the wooden bucket, as relaxed as if that was the most comfortable method of transportation available and her feet dangling playfully, a young woman emerged from the well. Her blond hair was tousled by the wind and her short dress and tights looked rather well worn, but all in all she was not what Mako had conjured in his imagination. She was pretty and very youthful, seemed almost a bit distracted as she climbed over the stone rim in light steps that didn’t make a sound. At least she had yet to notice him. 

She didn’t even look around, instead her eyes immediately searched for the little emerald trail that now led all the way up to the stables. Only then did she follow it with her gaze - and froze in her tracks when she finally noticed the man standing at its end. And the double barreled shotgun he had aimed right at her. 

He was of such a huge, broad build it made the weapon in his hands look almost small, though no less threatening. The expression of unmasked hatred on his face and the cold, hard resolution in his eyes to shoot anything dead that moved on his land without permission certainly would have instilled immediate terror in any human soul. The witch though only laughed, a surprised, bubbly sound, and curiously cocked her head. 

“You really are a stubborn one,” she said. She had noticed someone amateurishly trying so sabotage her portal, and though his attempts had been laughable and futile, the witch was impressed with his resilience. It even made her inclined to forgive him at the end of the day for pointing a gun at her, a rude gesture whether it could actually harm her or not. That was, as soon as she had accomplished what she had truly come for, of course. 

“Get the fuck off my property,” the man growled at her. 

The witch giggled. “Or what, you’ll shoot me?”

The farmer didn’t hesitate for even a second; he just pulled the trigger. It clicked, empty. He didn’t seem surprised by this, only angry, and the tension in his body grew visibly - for a moment, the witch expected him to just throw the shotgun away and come at her with his bare fists. Now, that would have been entertaining to see, but she didn’t have time for this nonsense. And she did feel a little insulted after all that he would have actually shot her!

“You’re a fool,” she told him, a cold edge to her voice. “Now, move.”

“You’re not taking him anywhere,” the man replied, not budging an inch. 

“That is not for you to decide, human. You should not be involved in this. _Step aside._ ”

Her last words rang in Mako’s head like a brass bell in a church tower - loud, heavy, inescapable, and his body moved his head telling it not to. He told his legs to stay firmly planted to where they were, but he found himself moving out of the doorway. He told his hands to hold onto the shotgun, useful or no, but they lowered it to the ground until it leaned against the wooden wall. He told himself to lunge at her and just snap her pale little neck as the witch strode past him in her silent steps, but he couldn’t despite all the muscles in his body being so tense he felt himself shaking. Mako couldn’t even yell at her for his teeth had clamped shut and his tongue felt like a block of lead, and the helpless rage threatened to drive him out of his mind. 

Inside the stables, Mako heard the collective, irritated hissing of half a dozen cats, and for a moment he almost felt hopeful. They were protecting Hayseed after all!

“Oh, quiet you, shoo!” the witch scolded them, and Mako’s short-lived hope dissolved again as the cats scattered on her command, though they continued to linger inside the stables, keeping an eye on the hayloft in visible distress. 

In her light movements, the witch climbed up the steps to kneel in the dusty hay and reached for the shivering lump pressed to the very back. She pushed her hand in until she felt the familiar jute under her fingertips, and smiled softly. “Hayseed. What are you doing here?”

The scarecrow knew better than to trust the motherly warmth in her voice. He had broken his ‘contract’ by abandoning his post and running from his master. He had revealed himself to a human, exposing their fragile world in the process that was shielded off from them for a reason - with carefully considered exceptions. That she had taken this long to notice his absence just meant one thing: that his master hadn’t even bothered to inform her. He didn’t care that Hayseed was gone, and she probably _knew_ that, and yet she’d still make him go back. Because those were the conditions under which she had given him his life, and their rules didn’t care whether those conditions were worth living by in the first place. 

Hayseed felt exhausted to the bone already, and he still couldn’t stop the dry sobs that tore at his already sore throat when the witch gently stroked his cheek through the rough cloth of the burlap. “Please don’t make me go back… I don’t want to go back, I don’t want to, please don’t make me… He doesn’t even want me back!”  
That still hurt the most. It shouldn’t, compared to the things he had done to Hayseed. And yet it did - Hayseed had tried so hard, he had endured so much, until he had been broken down mentally and physically and hadn’t been able to take it any longer. His master didn’t even care… 

“Now, why would you say that?” There it was, the icy, scolding tone Hayseed had feared so much. “He _begged_ me for your life, he crawled like a worm, it was pathetic.” The memory was still fresh to her: how Junkenstein had despaired over his attempts to keep the boy alive, how he had pulled him away from the brink of death again and again, and in the end had almost lost his mind over not being able to save him. 

\---

‘The boy’ was the twenty year old gamekeeper Junkenstein more or less employed. A strange young man, shunned by the town folk for the most ancient reason there was - he just didn’t fit in. He didn’t look at people when they talked to him, and half the time he also didn’t reply. If he did, it only loosely connected to the topic at hand. He didn’t care much for people though, either. The boy was happiest away from them, taking long strolls through the woods and across the fields, which unknowingly led him to Junkenstein’s premisses. The doctor found him there one cold autumn day, where the boy was busy erecting a feeding stand for the deer in the winter. At least that’s what he explained to the doctor. To the question whether he just did this anywhere without permission, he didn’t have an answer. Only silence, while he carefully avoided the man’s eyes. 

Since the boy meant no harm, however, the doctor gave him leave to do as he pleased - he had no use for the lands around him anyway, except that the forest growing on it shielded him off nicely from everyone else. He even found it relaxing to watch the deer feed from his lab’s windows - and on days he felt particularly lonely, he made his way down there again to wait for the boy to come fill the feeding stand. They didn’t make great conversation, but it was nice to ramble to a human being for a change, and the boy didn’t seem to mind. Only once did he interrupt the doctor, with a deep, longing sigh not even aimed at the man. 

“I wish I could live here.” The thought just tumbled out of the boy’s mouth as he stared into the snow covered woods, painful melancholy written clearly on his sharp face. 

And distracted from the interruption, the doctor had replied as any true scientist would: solution-oriented. “Well there’s an old cabin on the other side of the hill that no one’s using.”

That was that. They were neighbors in a sense, but behind firm stone walls Junkenstein wouldn’t have noticed twenty people living down in that cabin. Only his very irregular, sporadic visits revealed a growing garden around the cabin, and the more it grew, the more Junkenstein would find baskets filled with fruits or vegetables by the back entrance. It was a nice arrangement, and Junkenstein, who at this point had just pulled away entirely from society, found himself growing fond of the boy after all. Maybe people like them just needed this refuge, and it was nice to finally share it in some way.

But just because they could forget about other people, didn’t mean people forgot about them. 

It started out rather harmless - a few of the local kids had too much free time on their hands and started searching out the hermit their parents still talked about. They stole his drying clothes from the line, a simple dare at first. They stole fruits from the trees, which they boy didn’t understand because he would have just given them some. Still, he had learned that confrontation never worked out in his favor. They were scaring him with their noises, their shouting and hollering and with the destructive energy they brought with them. He didn’t know what else to do but to hide inside his cabin and hope for them to leave soon. Maybe if he ignored them, they’d become bored of bothering him. Of course, it never worked out that way. 

When they noticed he didn’t chase them but would rather hide from intruders, they became more bold. As if they were trying to provoke him to the point where he finally became angry and had to stand up to them. They were wreaking havoc on his beloved garden, trampling down saplings, ripping out produce by the roots and carelessly throwing unripe vegetables towards the cabin walls. Here the boy was hiding, covering his ears so he wouldn’t hear them calling him a coward and a retard and worse. He’d press his eyes shut and wished they would just _leave him alone_. He hadn’t done anything to them! He didn’t understand why they were doing this, he never wanted to be in trouble, there was no reason for them to follow him out here just to aggravate him. 

When the noise from outside subsided, the boy carefully opened the door. His garden was in ruins - torn and trampled, for no other reason than to torment him. Looking at the remains of their destruction, he started to cry - and in the distance he heard them laughing behind the bushes where they had hid just to see his reaction after all. The laughter cut into his heart like a knife. 

It still didn’t stop. They had tasted blood, and now they were out for more. 

One night a stone smashed his window to pieces, making the boy jerk up in his bed. A string of firecrackers followed. He barely had any time to react - he just watched the fuse burn down in the pitch black darkness of the cabin, and then hell broke loose around him. 

It was supposed to be a scare prank. But a spark caught the straw bedding. The spark turned into a flame, and the flame rapidly grew into a hungry, devouring fire. Outside the cabin, the children were screaming as they ran away. Inside, the boy was _shrieking_ when the fire caught onto his clothes.  
Up in the castle, the doctor frowned as an orange, flickering light from outside disrupted his late night study session. 

Junkenstein barely believed that the burnt body he pulled from the flames was still breathing. Once he noticed though, he knew he had to do everything to keep it that way. It was the only way his mind worked, obsessive over any grand idea he had. Suddenly it became the most important task in his world, to safe the closest thing to a friend he had had in decades, even though death stared him in the face every time he looked at the boy.  
In the end, he didn’t succeed. The injury was too traumatic, the pain too intense, the boy’s body was essentially screaming to let it go. But Junkenstein did not possess the capability of simply giving up. The boy did not deserve this fate. 

He found a way to keep the boy asleep, let his body rest and heal while a machine assisted his breathing. Junkenstein considered it genius. Yet it only bought him so much time until his patient’s organs started to fail anyway. By this time, Junkenstein hadn’t slept for days. He had lost track of everything but monitoring his patient’s vital parameters, keeping the machine running, balancing out the drug cocktail being pumped through the boy’s veins. So when he started to decline anyways, Junkenstein’s sleep-deprived, starved, obsessive brain wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. 

He resorted to his last, desperate attempt to save his project: he called upon something he didn’t even believe in. Something he would have never done with a functioning rational brain, because like any serious scientist he had just scoffed at the scrolls he had found in the depths of the old library. Now though, that he could feel death already grinning victoriously and reaching for his only friend with his cold fingers, he was ready to take even that chance. 

To the crack of thunder and a gust of wind that should not be felt within solid walls, the witch appeared. Before her she found a man who was crying and laughing hysterically, pulling at his white, thin hair as he stared at her in wild disbelief - and another man in the bed next to him, who should, by all accounts, be dead already. 

\---

Hayseed didn’t remember any of this. His memory started with his new life, in the strange shape it had taken. He understood the conditions of his existence were bound to the doctor. He was to stay there with him in the castle, as his assistant, his companion - the witch didn’t care much how they liked to call it, as long as he didn’t leave his home. 

Junkenstein had been smitten with him in the beginning. Almost too much so. His prodding curiosity could be unsettling at times, and Hayseed hadn’t liked the piercing stares that threatened to rip something from him if he wasn’t paying attention. That hadn’t been their main issue though. Junkenstein had tried to train Hayseed to be his assistant. It would have come in handy for him to have someone else bother with all the menial preparation, cleaning and documenting work. He could just imagine how productive his research was about to become. 

Hayseed had turned out to be utterly useless in that regard though. Junkenstein had noticed only then that he had never bothered to find out whether the boy had been able to read and write in his lifetime - Hayseed certainly wasn't. He didn’t learn, either. Letters and numbers stayed an unsolvable puzzle to him. And he was scatterbrained, too. Junkenstein had sent him off with an order, and halfway the scarecrow would get distracted and had started to wander around the castle like a lost child. He was scared by loud noises, which made sense, though surprisingly not by fire. Quite the contrary, the scarecrow seemed quite fascinated by fire, and often Junkenstein had found it quietly gazing into the flames for hours if he let it. 

Truthfully, the creature Junkenstein had begged to be brought to live, turned out to be a burden to him much more than anything. His resentment had grown over months until it had turned into outright hostility. If Hayseed had been good for nothing else, at least Junkenstein had had someone to direct his anger and frustration at. 

-

Hayseed didn’t know how to tell the witch. Or if she would even care. By her rules, nothing was more important than returning him to the place she had bound him to, and Hayseed knew that. So he stayed silent except for the muffled, shivering sobs he couldn’t suppress. 

“Come on, time to bring you home. I’m sure he’s missed you,” she said, but her voice couldn’t be more indifferent. “Don’t make me force you.” Layer by layer she uncovered him until all he could do was curl up into himself, wishing so desperately he would just disappear from her sight and from this world.

Suddenly though, the witch became very still. 

Carefully she touched his arm where it ended in a stump, although she also noticed the skillfully crafted prosthetic hand, then moved down to do the same to his severed leg, as if she didn’t want to trust only her eyes. This was not how she had left him with the doctor. “What happened to your arm and leg, Hayseed?” By now, the tone of her voice was unreadable. 

Hayseed couldn’t speak. He couldn’t tell her, the doctor had forbidden it. He wasn’t permitted to talk about how obsessed Junkenstein had become of the thought of recreating life ever since he had seen the witch do it. The doctor could not accept that this achievement should not also be his. So he had started experimenting. With insects first, then with amphibians, but all his results from those studies had been useless once he turned to small mammals. Warm-blooded life was different and more complex, a lot more vulnerable to less-than-ideal outside circumstances. Every mouse, hamster or rat that had died during his experiments had stayed dead for good. And the doctor’s end goal had been so much bigger than a rodent. After months of completely fruitless efforts, he had been at his wit’s end, reduced to an angry, snappy, malicious beast ready to tear into anything around it. Junkenstein knew he was missing something. One component, one procedure, one thought, there was something he didn’t see - until it finally struck him. There was indeed a link between dead and living creatures. And it lived right within the same walls as he. 

First he had only taken a finger. The boy would have understood by then why town folk claimed the doctor was insane, but the boy was dead. Hayseed just understood he had to obey his master. A single finger hadn’t offered enough tissue for thorough experimenting though, so he had taken the entire rest of Hayseed’s arm next, leaving him with just the awkwardly stumped crook of his elbow. The day the doctor also took almost his entire leg too, was the day Hayseed finally felt something break inside him. The chain had snapped at the weakest link. 

He had still stayed, because there had been nowhere else for him to go. Until Junkenstein had strapped a clunky prosthetic leg to him and had told Hayseed to quit crying and instead be grateful he had even made him a fully functioning knee joint, so he wouldn’t have to hobble around all awkward. Hayseed hadn’t been able to find it in him to be grateful. He hadn’t found it in him to be anything anymore. 

He had run off as soon as his injuries had allowed him, without a goal in mind and being almost as terrified of the outside world as of the doctor. He had known fully well though that no matter what punishment awaited him for breaking his bonds, it could not be worse than this. Nothing could be worse than this, and if he stayed, he’d literally be reduced to scarred pieces. 

-

“H-he needed them…,” Hayseed finally whispered. For a second, the witch’s fingers dug into his thigh, then she let go of him. The same plea Hayseed had been repeating for hours fell from his lips again before he could stop himself: “Don’t make me go back.”

For the first time in a long, long time, the witch felt at loss. By all rights she ought to make the scarecrow return to the place he was bound to. She had really strained the limits of her power and her permissions to wield them by granting him life., Confining him to the castle, binding him to a master had been a mere security measure. Then again, she had done so under the condition that the doctor would take care of him and take the responsibility seriously. She remembered the man swearing on his own life, swearing through tears running down his face he would, if she only kept him alive. 

The witch thought she had taken pity of the boy back then. After learning his story, she thought he deserved a sense of mercy - a clear memory, a new life, a companion who’d treat him gently. She looked at the broken, dismembered creature before her now and saw that instead, she had doomed him to an even crueler fate. The icy contempt she felt for the doctor in this very moment spread under her skin like a fever, chilling the very air around her. 

Junkenstein had _sworn_ to her- 

The witch shook her head to herself. She’d hear his excuses for herself. Later. 

“I apologize to you,” she finally broke the silence in a dull voice. “This was neither my intention nor my wish for you.”

She looked over her shoulder, down from the hayloft into the stables, and for the first time since arriving really took time to see. This was where Hayseed had chosen to live, and where he had apparently done so for quite a long time without causing any kind of disturbance that would have alerted her. He had chosen a farm, and the human it belonged to right with it. Another lone wolf by the looks of it, at least that wasn’t surprising. It did seem a much nicer place, where he could be under the open sky and on the fields where he belonged. With someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up for him even if it meant aiming a shotgun at something supernatural. Maybe Hayseed had chosen better than her after all. 

The witch sighed heavily. A snap of her fingers released the farmer from her seal, and next thing she knew he came barging into the stables. The spooked cats hissed at him and even the horse whickered in irritation. “Get the fuck away from him now! I’ll drag you out with my bare hands, I swear I’ll find a way-”

“He’s yours if you want him,” the witch interrupted him, pointedly loud over the farmer’s bellowing. It was almost comical to see how quickly that took the wind out of his sails. She looked down on him from the loft, and he just stared back, his body not knowing what to do with all the tension it had built up. “Under certain conditions of course.” Finally he deflated in a long exhale. 

Hayseed felt like an single tense nerve string, ready to snap at any second. He didn’t feel anything at her just offering him like property, because by her rules, that’s what he was. The witch had given him life, and it was her who determined where it would take place. Hayseed himself would have given it to no one else but Mako. Of course, the farmer had to agree too and suddenly Hayseed wasn’t sure whether he would. 

What if he decided he didn’t even want Hayseed around forever? That he’d get annoyed and fed up by the constant attention Hayseed demanded and would rather be by himself again? Without Hayseed who bothered him so much and who screwed up so much like that time he hadn’t closed the pig pen properly, or the time he’d accidentally spilled an entire sack of flour in the kitchen, or just how generally useless he was with only one working arm and his easily distracted head. Who wanted an assistant that was just a burden? Suddenly he could think of a million reasons why Mako wouldn’t agree to the witch’s proposal.

“What conditions?”

“Most importantly, he will be entirely your responsibility.”

“He already is.”

“You will be held accountable for any harm that comes to him, and any rules he breaks, by me.”

“Right. What rules?”

“He’s not to leave your land. He may not reveal himself to other humans. Do you know how this normally goes over? They usually don’t _adopt_ our kind.”

Mako laughed drily. 

“Also _you_ are not allowed to tell other humans,” the witch continued. 

“That’s in my own best interest.”

“Do not seek out other creatures. Neither of you. It would do you no good.”

“I’ve seen more than enough with the two of you.”

“This bond is meant for life. The duration of your life, anyway. If you break it by any means, or I decide you are no longer deserving of it, you have revoked your life. Do you understand that?”

Maybe Mako should have hesitated before giving such a promise. Given it a second thought. But as much as he had stopped questioning where Hayseed had come from, he had also stopped wondering whether he would ever leave. Nothing had ever indicated that Hayseed would want that. Mako certainly didn’t want him to. He couldn’t remember how he had spent his days before Hayseed had brought life into them, even if it meant chasing pigs across the yard or that he swept flour from the cracks of the floor three weeks after the incident still or fixing his strain-cracked peg leg yet again. Hayseed belonged to this farm, and everything that belonged to the farm also belonged to him. That was the only truth Mako knew and cared about. 

“Yes, fine, I understand. I agree. It’s done. What do you need to hear?”

“That’s all,” she smiled at him with the same look the cats seemed to give him. It said she knew something he didn’t. It was unnerving. Mako wanted her gone as soon as possible. She nudged Hayseed’s shoulder. “Did you hear? Aren’t you happy?”

Hayseed was floating. His entire brain was a foggy cloud, worn down by fear and mind-numbing anxiety so badly he could barely feel relief. And yet - 

He didn’t have to go back. He could stay. Mako wanted him to stay. He didn’t have to go back. He would never have to go back. He would just stay here. With Mako. And not go back. Ever.

“Hayseed, come down now.” That was the farmer calling for him. Hayseed looked over at where the top of the ladder was peeking out over the edge of the hayloft. It looked endlessly far away, and he’d have to climb all the way down with his limbs that felt like melted butter. But he wanted to be with the farmer so badly, he felt like he’d been away from him an entire year. A horrible, nightmarish year that he finally needed to end. 

Hayseed dragged himself closer to the edge in a lazy belly crawl, until he could see the farmer standing right under them. That was good. He was very big and very strong, so Hayseed wouldn’t even have to climb. Instead, exhausted as he was, he just inched further forward, until first his head and shoulders simply hung from the loft. There was no strength left in the scarecrow’s body, and so as soon as his arms followed, gravity dragged his limp body down. He didn’t even fight it, he just fell, heard Mako cuss and the witch giggle. Two big hands grabbed him wherever they caught him, and although the farmer stumbled, he never dropped Hayseed. 

The farmer struggled with the limp scarecrow for quite a while - rearranging his long limbs without any help was no easy task, but he finally managed to lift him up properly. Even though without Hayseed actively wrapping his legs around Mako’s belly, he did resemble an actual lifeless puppet just slung over the farmer’s shoulder. All the while Mako was mumbling the same soothing nonsense to the scarecrow as he would to a frightened horse. “Are you alright? Talk to me.”

“I can stay…” Hayseed whispered, utterly exhausted.

“Yes, I know.” The farmer’s voice was calm and content when he spoke to Hayseed, but calm and content was not to be found on his face when he looked up. The witch wasn’t even pretending to be discreet, watching them with obvious curiosity and satisfaction. He couldn’t believe they had to go through this entire ordeal for something she could make happen in a matter of seconds. Despite her change of heart, Mako couldn’t say he felt particularly fonder of her. “Can you do me a favor and fuck off now?”

She pulled a face at him, and in between the scarecrow that had decided to become the equivalent of a wet towel on Mako’s shoulder, and the witch who’s moods seemed to change extremes within a flash, Mako suddenly felt like maybe he was the most mentally stable here after all. Who’d have thought?

“I will leave you now,” the witch quipped, and hopped down the ladder light as a breeze. “But not because you asked so nicely. There’s someone else I need to see.” For a second, Mako could have sworn her face turned as dark as a storm cloud - then it passed, and she smiled at him.  
“Take good care of him. You wouldn’t like what happens if you don’t.” Her laughter was bright, but it still sent chills down Mako’s spine. 

 

The witch left them the same way she had come - down the well, waving at Mako as she descended on the swinging bucket. He wasn’t envying whoever had abandoned Hayseed and now had to answer to the witch, but he felt no pity either. 

\---

It took Hayseed a while to recover. During these days, he reminded Mako of a turtle hiding in its shell. Quiet, reserved, withdrawn, not at all like the Hayseed he knew. He was patient with the scarecrow though. Nothing could dim its light for long, the farmer knew that. 

He should be right. Over night, winter turned the world outside into a glittering white paradise. Fresh snow covered land and buildings alike beneath a soft blanket of snowy mounds that swallowed all sounds. The air was crisp and cold and the farmer woke from the chilly breeze wafting through the opened door. He sleepily rubbed at his face and was about to grumble at Hayseed for letting the cold in - until he saw the scarecrow standing in the doorway, completely transfixed, and with a renewed energy in his posture that Mako had missed for days. 

He bit back his scolding words and got up instead, wrapping himself into the blanket to come up behind Hayseed. The view outside made him smile. 

“Everything is so beautiful,” Hayseed whispered in admiration. Mako hummed in agreement. The turtle finally peeked out of its shell again and found it liked what it saw. Good. 

“Let me get dressed, then we let the pigs out. They love snow.”

By the time Mako had packed on enough layers to go outside without immediately turning into an icicle, the doorway was empty. He stepped outside and heard the squealing grunts of excited pigs - and Hayseed. “Slowly! Not all at once, don’t be so impatient!”

Look who’s talking, Mako thought to himself, and hid his ridiculously happy smile in his scarf, trotting through the snow to help Hayseed out. Or just watch him trying to avoid getting run over by playful pigs for a while, Mako hadn’t decided what he’d find more entertaining yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading!  
> I am so stoked about the feedback on this AU that started out to silly and schmoopy, love you all <3
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments or hang out on my [tumblr](https://piggyofoz.tumblr.com/)! (NSFW tumblr version [here](https://piggyofoz-nsfw.tumblr.com/)) - now also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mssileas)!


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